• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.166-177
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• 1997

The high strength AlZnMgCu0.5 alloy is a light metal with good age hardenability, and has a high tensile and yielding strength. Therefore, it can be used for structures requiring high speciple strength. Even though high strength AlZnMgCu alloy has good mechanical properties, it has a lot of problems in TIG and MIG welding processes. Since lots of high heat absorption is introduced into the weldment during TIG and MIG processes, the microstructural variation and hot cracks take place in heat affected zone. Therefore, the mechanical properties of high strength AlZnMgCu0.5 alloy can be degraded in weldment and heat affected zone. Welding process utilizing high density heat source such as electron beam should be developed to reduce pore and hot cracking, whichare usually accompanied by MIG and TIG welding processes. In this work, electron beam welding process were used with or without AlMg4.5Mn as filler material to avoid the degradation of mechanical properties. Mechanical and metallurgical characteristics were also studied in electron beam weldment and heat affected zone. Moreover hot cracking mechanism was also investigated.